John Knox and the Reformation

ous to mine own judgement," by a summons from Mrs. Bowes. He did not like leaving his "den" to rejoin his betrothed; the lover was not so fervent as the evangelist was cautious. Knox ha

with Cardinal Beaton, kept Scotland true to the French alliance, and her daughter, the fair Queen of Scots, was at this moment a child in France, betrothed to the Dauphin. As a Catholic, of the House of Lorraine, Mary could not but cleave to her faith and to the French alliance. In 1554 she had managed to oust from the Regency the Earl of Arran, the head of the all but royal Hamiltons, now gratif

60} As a matter of fact, the Regent later refused a French suggestion that she should peacefully call Protestants together, and then order a massacre after the manner of the Bartholomew: itself still

king should cut all Catholic throats. He attributed to her, quite erroneously and uncharitably, his own unsparing fervour. As h

ty in Scotland, many of them paid traitors, did not resent these "rebukes of a friend," so much as both the nobles a

rgyll was very old: Chatelherault was a rival of the Regent, a competitor for the Crown and quite incompetent. The Regent, in short, could scarcely have discovered a Scottish adviser worthy of employment, and when she did trust one, he was the brilliant "chamaeleon," young Maitland of Lethington, who would rather betray his master cleverly than run a straight course, and did betray the Regent. Thus Mary, a Frenchwoman and a Catholic, governing Scotland for her Catholic daughter, the Dauphiness, with the aid of a few French troops who had just saved the independence of the country, naturally employed French advisers. This made her unpopular

d conscience, delighted much in the company of the said John." There were pleasant sisters in Edinburgh, who later consulted Knox on the delicate subject of dress. He was more tolerant in answering them than when he denounced "the stinking pride of women" at Mary Stuart's Court; admitting that "in clothes,

ts of God are often impeded to pray for such as carnally they love unfeignedly," is difficult to understand. We leave it to the learned to expl

ower of Montrose. Nobody seems to have thought anything of it, nor should we know the fact, if the record of the blood-price paid by Mr. Erskine to the priest's father did not testify to the fervent act. Six years later, accor

t, in 1555, the Catholic Church, in Scotland, thus vigorously forced people of Protestant opinions to present themselves at Mass, punishing nonconformity with ruin. I have not found any complaints to this effect, at that time. But no doubt an appearance of conformity might save much trouble, even in the lenient conditions produced by the character of t

can Protestants. Nothing of the sort was to be found in the first Prayer Book of Edward VI.; broken lights of various ways of regarding the Sacrament probably played, at this moment, over the ideas of Knox's Scottish disciples.

srael-was a step calculated to confuse the real issues and to provoke a religious war of massacre. Knox, we know, regarded extermination of idolaters as a counsel of perfection, though in the Christian scriptures not one word co

es, never really coincident with the actual modern circumstances. The analogy produced in discussion by those who did not go to all extremes with Knox did not, however, lack appropriateness. Christianity, in fact, as they seem to have argued, did arise out of Judaism; retaining the same God and the same scriptures, but, in virtue of the sacrifice of its Founder, ab

cts xxi. 18-36). Paul was informed that many thousands of Jews "believed," yet remained zealous for the law, the old order. They had learned that Paul advised the Jews in Greece and elsewhere not to "walk after the customs."

dvice of the Church of Jerusalem; consequently Protestants in a Catholic country, under the existing circumstances, might attend the Mass. The Mass was not "idolatry." The analogy halts, like all analogies, but so, of course, and to fatal results, does Knox's analogy between the foreign worships of Israel and the Mass. "S

James's commandment or Paul's obedience proceeded from the Holy Ghost," about which Knox was, apparently, better informed than these Apostles and the Church of Jerusalem. Next, Paul was presently in danger from a mob, which had been falsely told that he took Greeks into the Temple. Hence it was manifest "that God approved not that means of reconciliation." Obviously

s who sacrificed their children to a foreign God, while to extirpate idolaters was the duty of a Christian prince. Lethington, as he soon showed, was as clear-sighted in regard to Knox's logical methods as any man of to-day, but he "concluded, saying, I see perfectly tha

counsel of perfection, but persistent "idolaters," legally, lay after 1560 under sentence of death. There was to come a moment, we shall see, when even Knox shrank from the consequences of a theory ("a murderous syllogism," write

irds of the Lothians, Ayrshire, and Forfarshire. He also preached for ten days in the town house, at Edinburgh, of the Bishop of Dunkeld. On May 15, 1556, he was summoned to appear in the church of the Black Friars. As he was backed by Erskine of Dun, and other gentlemen, according to the Scottish custom when legal proceedings were afoot, no steps were taken against him, the clergy probably dreading Knox's defenders, as Bothwell later, in similar cir

reported to the Regent by some of the clergy, or by rumour, as a heretic and seducer of the people. But Knox had learned that the "dew of the heavenly grace" had quenched her displeasure, and he hoped that the Regent would be as clement to others in his case as to him. Therefore he returns to his attitude in the letter to his Berwick congregation (1552). He calls for no Jehu, he advises no armed opposition to the sovereign, but says of "God's chosen children" (the Protestants), that "thei

of my brethren and illumination of your Grace." He confesses that the Regent is probably not "so free as a public reformation perhaps would require," for that required the downcasting of altars and images, and prohibition to celebr

chbishop of Glasgow, saying, "Please you, my Lord, to read a pasquil," a

idolaters may have been slight, but the comparison was odious, and far from tactful. Knox also reviled the creed in which she had been bred as "a poisoned cup," and threatened her, if she did not act on his counsel, with "tor

onvert any person, begin by reviling his religion. Knox adopted the same method with Mary Stuart: t

is secret business sped of that gracious lady either by day or night." {71a} He styled her, as we saw, "a wanton widow"; he hinted that she was the mistress of Cardinal Beaton; he made similar insinuations about her relations with d'Oysel (who was "a secretis mulierum"); he said, as we have

bluffness. But if we put ourselves in the position of opponents whom he was trying to convert, of the two Marys for example, we cannot but perceive that his method was